Sir,
'My Arkle will live as long as I am alive', quoted the owner, HRH Duchess of Westminster.
Arkle was a unique, intelligent and very brave steeplechaser in the days of real chasing.
He won three consecutive Cheltenham Gold Cups in 1964, 65, 66, the King George in 1965, also the Mackeson, the Hennessy, the Whitbread and lost only on a few occasions when the weight he was carrying was just too much, and giving away about two-and-a-half stone to good horses.
When he had to retire because of a shattered bone in his foreleg, the Duchess insisted that he was put out to grass for a holiday for the rest of his life. I must also give credit to the owners of Red Rum and the insistence of Donald McCain.
They had done their duty, a lifetime's work, entertaining millions of people, all over the world. There is also the case of Aldaniti and Bob Champion, Grand National winners in 1981, a fairy story second to none, who both gave hope for the future of people who thought that they had no future. You would be amazed at the response that was received after this win, and so brought about the film 'Champions'.
These horses became household heroes and all lived to a fine old age, and deservedly so.
But no! Not with a little lifeboat house tucked far away in West Wales "Pull it down," cries Angela Burns AM. "The charity no longer needs the red- roofed station and has to spend £6,000 a year maintaining it." Send it to the slaughterhouse and give the meat to the poor, is what she is saying. I can say that the RNLI is the richest charity in the UK and I add "Quite rightly so!"
"The money needs to be spent on saving lives, not old buildings," she says.
My hat goes off to Jane Davidson, very well said. How I wish that RNLI stalwarts Ted Blythyn and Jack Thomas had been alive to address those remarks. I can assure you that I would not have liked to have been in the same room.
How many lives has that lifeboat station saved over its many years and how many lifeboats has it outlived in that time. How many men has it lost? How may coxswains have there been? How many fishermen from their own town has it saved, let alone the visitors and holidaymakers?
Instead of wasting grant money on something ridiculous, why not give a young entrepreneur the chance to open a little working museum with a working model of how the boat was launched and a complete history of all crews, right back to Victorian times when horses had to pull the old boats onto the tide. They could hold film shows in there and have a library of slide shows; these would educate adults as well as schoolchildren.
Don't forget that lots of people who holiday in Tenby come for the beaches and the sunshine, but also there are so many who have never seen a cow or a sheep, let alone walk inside a real lifeboat station. You only have to look at the success of Glyn Williams's idea at Folly Farm.
I hear people say, "there is already an exhibition of the lifeboat in our museum on Castle Hill." I agree, but they could move their exhibits to this venue; they would then have a lot more room to exhibit items which rarely see the light of day which are all in storage. They are very forward-looking there now, and I am sure that the museum would be worth approaching.
The museum, I must say, has come on leaps and bounds and maybe they do need the room for exhibitions during the season, that they could not otherwise stage. After all, where is it? It's on Castle Hill, and what could be better than two museums within a few hundred yards of each other.
As a young lad I remember seeing a photograph of the Victoria Pier and asking my father where it used to be?
I do not want my great-grandchildren to be asking their fathers the same question.
One of my sons also asked me a few years ago, "Where was Shanley's Dad?"
For goodness sake, hand it over to some keen young local men whose family, fathers and forefathers spilt their blood for this lifeboat institution that we have in our town, and let us all remember them and even hold a church service in there, now and again.
Tenby is so lucky to have this bond of fishermen, lifeboat and fire brigade boys, many of whom are personal friends of mine, and who risk their lives for us all every day.
I do so hope that a decision is made on this very soon, and that the person who makes it actually has a 'brain' and also a 'heart'.
'Otherwise they'll be shooting pensioners next,' quote myself.
Richard Lawrence,
Bridge Street, Brecon.